3 Takeaways From Stars’ Stunning 6-1 Loss in Game 1 vs. Wild

The playoffs started off with a thud in Texas, as the Minnesota Wild defeated the Dallas Stars 6-1 in Game 1 on Saturday afternoon at American Airlines Center. Jason Robertson scored the lone goal for the Stars, while Jake Oettinger made 23 saves on 28 shots.

Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, Matt Zuccarello, and Kirill Kaprizov each had three points, while Jesper Wallstedt made 27 saves on 28 shots.

Despite going to three straight Conference Finals, the Stars have now lost nine of their last 11 Game 1s and will look to rebound once again on Monday night.

Penalty Box Parade Sinks Stars

The Stars’ effort on Saturday was uninspired across the board, and they seemed to be chasing the game right from the start. They were losing battles all night and had issues exiting and entering zones. However, their inability to stay out of the penalty box had them behind the 8-ball early, and they couldn’t recover.

When it comes to power-play success, the Stars were second in the NHL this season at 28.6%, and the Wild were third at 25.2%, and both teams were mediocre on the penalty kill. Discipline is always encouraged, of course, but with those stats, it’s safe to assume that the most disciplined team each night is going to end up the victor.

The refs typically let the players play more in the playoffs, resulting in fewer penalties. But that didn’t stop the Stars from taking four of them, including one in the first five minutes of the game that resulted in Eriksson Ek’s first of two on the night.

While the postseason is a different animal, the Stars are no strangers to coming back from a multi-goal deficit to eventually win the game. They did it against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second-to-last game of the season, the Wild a couple of weeks ago, and multiple times throughout the season. Oh, and don’t forget Game 7 against the Colorado Avalanche in last year’s opening round.

So, when Robertson scored a power-play goal of his own at 15:10 of the second period to make it 4-1, it was more than reasonable to think this could jumpstart yet another comeback.

Well, Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night, again on the power play, less than halfway through the third period, and any bid for a comeback was over. The chances were slim anyway, but a penalty sank whatever chances there were.

Overall, the Wild were 2-for-4 on the power play, while the Stars were 1-for-4, so it’s not that the Stars didn’t have chances of their own. They just couldn’t convert.

“Losing Battles”: The Theme of Game 1

As I noted earlier, the Stars tend to lose Game 1 a lot, and they typically come back to win the series. However, that’s not the point. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should tempt fate by putting yourself in that position. With an extremely lackluster performance on Saturday, that’s exactly what they’ve done heading into Game 2.

“It certainly didn’t look like a playoff game from our point of view,” Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan said. “I thought that they, to a man, were better than us, which hasn’t happened to us a lot during the year. You can’t get your game going if you’re not going to win battles. You can take any metric, and if you lose skating battles and puck battles, you are always on the receiving end of everything negative.”

The Wild didn’t play a perfect game. They had some good bounces and benefited from the Stars’ lack of discipline. However, that’s what happens when you respect the game and win your battles. Usually, when you outwork your opponent, the game will go your way, and Gulutzan said as much.

“It wasn’t fundamental breakdowns there. For me, it was battles,” Gulutzan added. “It wasn’t coverage issues. We didn’t win anything. When you’re not winning anything, and you’re not winning your races, you’re not winning 50-50 (battles), you put yourself at risk for what happened. Deflections, a shot from the half-wall that goes off a guy and goes in, one from behind the net. Because you’re in vulnerable spots, because you’re not winning battles. Like I said, to a man, I think we can all be better in that area.”

“We didn’t deserve to win,” Mikko Rantanen said, echoing his head coach. “I think the first 30 minutes, we didn’t win enough battles. They were just a little bit stronger in the battles; that’s how they were able to make us defend more than we wanted to. That’s somewhere we can be a little stronger.”

There you have it. Battles, battles, and more battles. You better believe the Stars will put more effort into their “battles” in Game 2.

Reason to Panic in Dallas?

There’s no reason to panic. Again, this happens to the Stars a lot, and they will undoubtedly give the Wild all they can handle in Game 2. That being said, a 0-2 hole against an inspired Wild team could almost certainly mean curtains.

“I don’t think we played our best game, but we’ve played a lot of playoff series and lost a lot of Game 1s, so I feel like we know what we need to do next game,” Oettinger said. “We all have to be better. I think the last goal was bad, but I think I did good things and I think I have a lot that I need to be better at. I think I can make more saves. That’s one thing I can focus on. I can’t control what’s going on in front of me or the forecheck. I just need to be a lot better next game.”

For the record, even if he would like a goal or two back, Saturday was not on Oettinger, and I give Gulutzan a lot of credit for not pulling him in that situation.

“Nothing for me was on our goaltending,” Gulutzan said, defending his netminder. “Certainly, our special teams need to be better, and our 5-on-5 play wasn’t good enough.”

We all remember how former head coach Pete DeBoer handled Oettinger in the first period of Game 5 in the Conference Final last year. Gulutzan wasn’t going to leave anything up for speculation and stood behind Oettinger.

Game 2 goes Monday night in Dallas before heading to Minnesota for Game 3 on Wednesday.